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1. Topological pumping of a 1D dipolar gas into strongly correlated prethermal states

   https://doi.org/0.1126/science.abb4928  

   Kao, Wil; Li, Kuan-Yu; Lin, Kuan-Yu; Gopalakrishnan, Sarang; Lev, Benjamin (January 2021, Science)

   null (Ed.)

   Long-lived excited states of interacting quantum systems that retain quantum correlations and evade thermalization are of great fundamental interest. We create nonthermal states in a bosonic one-dimensional (1D) quantum gas of dysprosium by stabilizing a super-Tonks-Girardeau gas against collapse and thermalization with repulsive long-range dipolar interactions. Stiffness and energy-per-particle measurements show that the system is dynamically stable regardless of contact interaction strength. This enables us to cycle contact interactions from weakly to strongly repulsive, then strongly attractive, and finally weakly attractive. We show that this cycle is an energy-space topological pump (caused by a quantum holonomy). Iterating this cycle offers an unexplored topological pumping method to create a hierarchy of increasingly excited prethermal states. 

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2. Non-equilibrium states and interactions in the topological insulator and topological crystalline insulator phases of NaCd4As3

   https://doi.org/10.1063/4.0000273  

   Kafle, Tika R; Zhang, Yingchao; Wang, Yi-yan; Shi, Xun; Li, Na; Sapkota, Richa; Thurston, Jeremy; You, Wenjing; Gao, Shunye; Dong, Qingxin; et al (January 2025, Structural Dynamics)

   Topological materials are of great interest because they can support metallic edge or surface states that are robust against perturbations, with the potential for technological applications. Here, we experimentally explore the light-induced non-equilibrium properties of two distinct topological phases in NaCd4As3: a topological crystalline insulator (TCI) phase and a topological insulator (TI) phase. This material has surface states that are protected by mirror symmetry in the TCI phase at room temperature, while it undergoes a structural phase transition to a TI phase below 200 K. After exciting the TI phase by an ultrafast laser pulse, we observe a leading band edge shift of >150 meV that slowly builds up and reaches a maximum after ∼0.6 ps and that persists for ∼8 ps. The slow rise time of the excited electron population and electron temperature suggests that the electronic and structural orders are strongly coupled in this TI phase. It also suggests that the directly excited electronic states and the probed electronic states are weakly coupled. Both couplings are likely due to a partial relaxation of the lattice distortion, which is known to be associated with the TI phase. In contrast, no distinct excited state is observed in the TCI phase immediately or after photoexcitation, which we attribute to the low density of states and phase space available near the Fermi level. Our results show how ultrafast laser excitation can reveal the distinct excited states and interactions in phase-rich topological materials. 

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3. Phantom energy in the nonlinear response of a quantum many-body scar state

   https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk8978  

   Yang, Kangning; Zhang, Yicheng; Li, Kuan-Yu; Lin, Kuan-Yu; Gopalakrishnan, Sarang; Rigol, Marcos; Lev, Benjamin L (September 2024, Science)

   Quantum many-body scars are notable as nonthermal, low-entanglement states that exist at high energies. In this study, we used attractively interacting dysprosium gases to create scar states that are stable enough to be driven into a strongly nonlinear regime while retaining their character. We measured how the kinetic and total energies evolve after quenching the confining potential. Although the bare interactions are attractive, the atoms behave as if they repel each other: Their kinetic energy paradoxically decreases as the gas is compressed. The missing “phantom” energy is quantified by benchmarking our experimental results against generalized hydrodynamics calculations. We present evidence that the missing kinetic energy is carried by undetected, very high momentum atoms. 

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4. Inducing spin-order with an impurity: phase diagram of the magnetic Bose polaron

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac836c  

   Mistakidis, S I; Koutentakis, G M; Grusdt, F; Schmelcher, P; Sadeghpour, H R (August 2022, New Journal of Physics)

   Abstract We investigate the formation of magnetic Bose polaron, an impurity atom dressed by spin-wave excitations, in a one-dimensional spinor Bose gas. Within an effective potential model, the impurity is strongly confined by the host excitations which can even overcome the impurity-medium repulsion leading to a self-localized quasi-particle state. The phase diagram of the attractive and self-bound repulsive magnetic polaron, repulsive non-magnetic (Fröhlich-type) polaron and impurity-medium phase-separation regimes is explored with respect to the Rabi-coupling between the spin components, spin–spin interactions and impurity-medium coupling. The residue of such magnetic polarons decreases substantially in both strong attractive and repulsive branches with strong impurity-spin interactions, illustrating significant dressing of the impurity. The impurity can be used to probe and maneuver the spin polarization of the magnetic medium while suppressing ferromagnetic spin–spin correlations. It is shown that mean-field theory fails as the spinor gas approaches immiscibility since the generated spin-wave excitations are prominent. Our findings illustrate that impurities can be utilized to generate controllable spin–spin correlations and magnetic polaron states which can be realized with current cold atom setups. 

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5. Concerning the stability of biexcitons in hybrid HJ aggregates of π -conjugated polymers

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0090515  

   Bittner, Eric R.; Silva, Carlos (May 2022, The Journal of Chemical Physics)

   Frenkel excitons are the primary photoexcitations in organic semiconductors and are ultimately responsible for the optical properties of such materials. They are also predicted to form bound exciton pairs, termed biexcitons, which are consequential intermediates in a wide range of photophysical processes. Generally, we think of bound states as arising from an attractive interaction. However, here, we report on our recent theoretical analysis, predicting the formation of stable biexciton states in a conjugated polymer material arising from both attractive and repulsive interactions. We show that in J-aggregate systems, 2J-biexcitons can arise from repulsive dipolar interactions with energies E 2 J > 2 E J , while in H-aggregates, 2H-biexciton states with energies E 2 H < 2 E H can arise corresponding to attractive dipole exciton/exciton interactions. These predictions are corroborated by using ultrafast double-quantum coherence spectroscopy on a [poly(2,5-bis(3-hexadecylthiophene-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene)] material that exhibits both J- and H-like excitonic behavior. 

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